Aeneas Tragic Hero

472 Words2 Pages
“Young Romulus will take the leadership, build walls of Mars, And call by his own name his people Romans. For these I set no limits, world or time, But make the gift of empire without end." (Book 1. 371-375). This explains how in Allen Mandelbaum's verse interpretation of the Aeneid by Virgil, he explains how one of the main characters is destined to win from the very beginning. Aeneas was the protagonist and a glorious war hero who was destined to win while Turnus was the antagonist and the overconfident prince who thought he could overcome fate. Aeneas displayed all of the traits that a heroic hero should display while Turnus displayed the traits that a tragic hero would normally display. And for that reason, Aeneas was more of a heroic…show more content…
Throughout the book, there have been oracles telling of how glorious Aeneas’s future will be and how he will found Rome. Aeneas was destined to found Rome while Turnus was just a fork in the road. Aeneas was fated to receive a hero's victory while Turnus was destined to tragically die a hero's death Turnus, while still heroic, had all of the tragic hero traits. He could take out massive hoards of Trojan men like in book twelve, but no matter how hard he tried, he was tragically destined to die. Sadly enough, all of Turnus’s Tragic hero qualities outnumbered his heroic qualities by a long shot. Still, Turnus’s arrogance and ignorance ended up as his demise. Turnus, while displaying some of the many Heroic traits, came nowhere close to showing the amount of heroic traits that the mighty Aeneas displayed. While Turnus was destined to lose in the first place, he could have prevented his death if he had not been so hotheaded and arrogant. In Book twelve, Aeneas was about to spare out Turnus’s life out of pity for Turnus’s father, but, Turnus had slaughtered one of Aeneas’s companions and took his ornamented belt. When Aeneas was about spare Turnus’s life, he saw the belt and decided that Turnus had gone too far, so he ended his life. Turnus still however, die a hero's

More about Aeneas Tragic Hero

Open Document